


Insomniacs and Matesprits

by Laylah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caretaking, M/M, Pre-Canon, Red Romance, Reluctant Fluff, Sleepy Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late enough to almost be early, the light leaking in around the blinds a dull orange, when Karkat drifts mostly awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomniacs and Matesprits

Here they go again. Sollux gets into one of his moods—no, the other one—and becomes completely obnoxious, trolling people all night and on into the morning when he really ought to be asleep, coding stupid viruses just to prove he's still the best at them (and he is, the insufferable fuckhead, no matter how much Karkat argues, it's true), only eating crap and not even regularly. Karkat spends the first three nights yelling at him in Trollian, reminding him how much he's fucking up right now and how badly he needs to take better fucking care of himself and stop being such a _grubmunching loadstain_...and then, like always, he gives up on trying to fix this from a distance and sets off for Sollux's hive the next dusk.

There's a password to get in, but Karkat's good enough to hack it (or, okay, what really happens is: Sollux picks easy fucking passwords for his hive, which is his way of inviting Karkat in). And Sollux is hunched over in front of his husktop, slumped low enough that this mood has to be close to burning itself out. Karkat stomps through to the nutrition dispensing unit without stopping to say hi, and Sollux doesn't bother to look up, and generally they both pretend this isn't happening until Karkat has a decent approximation of a grubloaf mashed together.

"Eat," Karkat says, shoving the dish under Sollux's nose, almost close enough to jam the wrong end of the eating pick up one nostril into his thinkpan.

Sollux startles like he really didn't notice Karkat coming in. Code scrolls on the screen, reflected in his glasses. "I'm fine," he says. "You didn't have to do thith, KK."

"Just shut up and eat," Karkat says. Times like this he has to keep his temper in check—Sollux is fucking _wrong_ about being fine, he's on night four of a fucking stupid bender, but he won't listen if Karkat tells him so as bluntly as he deserves.

"If it'll make you thtop hovering like that," Sollux says—he is an _asshole_ when he's like this, seriously—and takes a bite. And then another bite, and another one. Karkat can practically watch his synapses firing, slowly making the discovery that food is good for you _yet again_.

Sollux finishes off every bite of the halfassed grubloaf, and by the time he's done his shoulders are slumping as the need to digest solid food slows him down a little more. Karkat takes the nutrition platter and goes to dump it in the sink, and when he comes back Sollux has pushed his glasses up so he can scrub the exhaustion out of his eyes.

"Thorry," he says, "I know you jutht got here, but I...don't feel tho good."

"I know," Karkat says. "You need to fucking crash, you tremendous bulgehuffing jackass."

Sollux smiles, just a little bit, on the red side. "You're not even trying," he says. "You don't thound angry at all."

Karkat doesn't have a good argument for that, so he just says, "Shut up and let's get you in your recuperacoon, you douche."

There's a little more fussing and grumbling on the way, but Sollux lets himself be herded into his recuperacoon without a real fight. Karkat isn't the only one who's stopped trying to resist how this goes.

After Sollux leans back into the sopor, there's a minute where Karkat reminds himself he could go home. He could just let Sollux sleep it off, and that would be it. There'd be a decent chance that Sollux wouldn't slide all the way from one extreme to the other immediately.

Karkat lets that thought sit there for a minute, trying to make its argument persuasive, and then starts stripping off so he can join Sollux in the slime. Neither of them has ever said _I pity you_ in so many words, but Karkat is pretty sure their feelings are about the same shade.

He eases into Sollux's recuperacoon, sliding an arm around Sollux's middle and pulling him close enough so that they can both get some sleep. Sollux is smiling, he thinks. Just a little bit.

* * *

It's late enough to almost be early, the light leaking in around the blinds a dull orange, when Karkat drifts mostly awake. He and Sollux have gotten tangled up closer as they slept, close enough that now Sollux's teeth are grazing his ear and Sollux's paired horns are rubbing against one of his. Karkat shivers, letting his claws trail down Sollux's back. The sopor slime makes everything feel hazy and sort of disconnected, but that's fine. The way Sollux is moving, languid and slow, he might still be asleep himself.

His bone bulge is stiff against Karkat's hip, though, and Karkat isn't far off either. "Sollux?"

"Mmm," Sollux says sleepily. "Feelth good, KK."

"Just checking," Karkat says, twisting his hips so his bulge will line up better with Sollux's.

Sollux rocks against him. "Idiot," he says, and maybe his voice is just sopor-thick but Karkat likes to think he can hear emotion in it, too. It's romantic, he thinks, like something out of a movie—being together, like this, in the weird burnt hour at the end of the day when only insomniacs and matesprits are awake.

They slide against each other, slow, and the soothing cushion of sopor gives all the sensations a syrupy, drawn-out feel. It's not frantic, the way they get sometimes, just...easy, quiet, like the tide slowly coming in until it finally reaches its peak and they both climax, almost at the same time.

The filter for Sollux's recuperacoon rumbles on quietly, ready to start scrubbing the slime clean of all the genetic material they've just dumped in it. Karkat squirms a little, trying to get untangled enough that he'll be able to go back to sleep, and Sollux clutches at his wrist. "Don't go."

"Not going anywhere, fuckass," Karkat murmurs. "Still time to sleep."

"Kay," Sollux mumbles, grip loosening again. "Thleep well."

"Yeah," Karkat says. He's starting to drift off, but he catches Sollux's hand in his own. "You too."


End file.
